True Immortal
by Alec Star
Summary: Methos reveals the true origin of the game. I wrote this fic back in 1998. I'm posting it now because it may help you understand some aspects of 'A Watcher's Son'.
1. Chapter 1: True Immortal

**_Disclaimer_**: I don't own the characters, I don't own the concepts, I make no money, I make no sense and I get no sleep but I absolutely **_love_** reviews.

**_True Immortal_**

The younger man looked at him as if waiting for an answer... an explanation... anything that might help him understand what went on so long before his time... help him to reconcile the image of the man he called his friend with Death on a Horse. He had to tell him something, he just wasn't sure if the younger Scot would ever understand... he thought about lying to him, but he now realized just how important their friendship was for him... his past had come back to haunt him once and could very well do it again... still, telling the truth after millennia of lies wasn't easy, and it certainly wasn't comfortable... it left him feeling exposed and and that was something he sure wasn't looking forward to.

"Do you know what it is to be alone? Truly alone?"

It was almost a rhetorical question, they both knew the younger man understood what he meant, still he nodded.

"Of course you do," the older man continued "you were alone from the time your father banished you from your clan until Connor found you, trained you, taught you the rules, the basics of how to play the Game. But can you imagine what would you have become had Connor not been there for you, had there been no explanation, no escape, no Game to play, only an endless life without the possible release of death? Can you imagine being a pariah for all eternity, cursed, dying of thirst, starvation and exposure time and time again... if you were lucky... wishing for once you could stay dead and knowing that wouldn't happen... a monster to men who could only fear you or use you to their own ends... unable to fight back?"

"I was there, Mac, it went on and on, I don't know for how long as there was no calendar to tell me that, numbers and years hadn't quite been invented yet, all I know is that the seasons followed one another in more cycles than I could distinctly remember. I feared the people almost as much as they feared me... I could not be killed but I could be hurt, and they knew that as well as I did."

"In time fear turns to hate, and by the time it did there was nothing remotely human left in me. I was an animal and they were my prey, just as I was theirs, I hunted them in order to survive, but, almost without realizing it, I was also beginning to learn from them, I learned their skills, their languages, their ways of hurting one another. And I used their own knowledge against them, I sought their weaknesses and used them for my own ends, always alone."

"Eventually I found others like me, as alone, as wild and as full of hatred as I was. And we hunted them together. We were stronger, deadlier, they could no longer hurt us, and my hatred grew even more, nourished by the other's."

"There were four of us already by the time it happened... we raided a camp and discovered horses. They made us more powerful, more frightening... we could come and go through greater distances, we could move faster, we could kill more."

"Every now and then we found one we couldn't kill, one who wouldn't remain dead, but they refused to recognize us as their kin, they feared us as much as the others did, they hated us like they did. We kept them as slaves, at first only because we just couldn't quite figure out what to do with them. We thought of them as a burden rather than an asset, but it felt good to have them serve us, to have them fear us. A constant reminder of our own power."

"Cassandra" The older man hadn't expected to be interrupted, but he nodded quietly acknowledging the fact.

"Yes, Cassandra was one of them, she was lucky, she escaped us in time"

"Why didn't you just take their heads, their Quickening?"

"Because, my young friend, to take a head you need a sword, a sharp sword. We had a couple of them, looted from God knows where, made of coper or bronze, I'm not sure. What I do remember is that they were heavy and that they weren't sharp enough to take a head. Besides they were a new invention and we didn't know that if you behead an immortal he stays dead. We were more familiar with the ax, but even with that we aimed for the chest rather than the neck. Remember what happened when you first fought Cangwolf, before you knew what you were?" Methos said, happy to free himself from the memories, if only for an instant.

For the first time he saw in the Scot's features that he was beginning to understand what being five thousand years old really meant, how much had the world truly changed in only a hundred lifetimes. Duncan had always lived by the sword and was now trying, for the first time, to imagine a world without it. He had to measure his words carefully. He sighed before he continued.

"We were monsters," Methos admitted " but we were monsters only because we couldn't be killed. What Cassandra told you about us, about what we did, it's all true, but what she forgot in her hatred is that we weren't monsters in an idyllic world, killing for pleasure in an otherwise peaceful world. What we did to those in our path was no different than what they did to each other. Wars were fought until the last man, woman and child had been exterminated, an enemy was an enemy and there were no peace negotiations. There was no honour code, and it certainly wasn't a good time for human rights... hell... we didn't even think of the ones we were killing as human... they didn't think of themselves as human."

"The only thing that made us any different was the fact that there was nothing that could end our rampage. We were immortal, truly immortal. There was no weapon that could be used to behead us, and even if there were, we were not aware that there was a way for us to die, to end our lives, even if sometimes that was all we wanted. There was no Game back then, only an endless war against the mortal world that surrounded us."

"It was an accident," continued the older man, "I was angry with one of the slaves, a child, I wanted to punish him as I had done so many times. I wanted to kill him knowing he would come back. I wanted to see the fear and pain in his eyes. I can still remember... swinging my ax... forgetting in my rage that he was so small... striking his neck instead of his chest... what happened then took me by surprise, I remember his energy filling my body, a pain greater than the one I intended to inflict, and then his mind was in my mind... it almost drove me crazy... when it was over I had already tasted the power and wanted more of it. Kronos, Caspian and Silas were watching but they didn't understand, they still expected him to get up... I already knew he wouldn't."

"I craved the power, the energy, I took another slave, and then another... The other Horsemen followed my example, none of the slaves fought us... but the power was like a drug and each one of us wanted to take every single head. Soon we found ourselves threatening each other. It was a massacre, we beheaded all the slaves that we had kept for so long... and it was also the end of the Horsemen as we turned our hatred towards the ones we had called brothers. It was the memory of our time together, as much as a newly awakened survival instinct, what in the end kept us from beheading one another. We parted ways, for one last time, I remember the last words I spoke to my brothers as I rode away from the only family I had ever known, unsure if those words represented a threat or a promise, shall we ever meet again, totally unaware of what I was about to unleash."

"A threat or a promise?"

"There can be only one."

Let the games begin.


	2. Chapter 2: The Games We Play

**_For disclaimers see chapter 1  
_**  
**_The Games We Play_**

Duncan was shocked, torn between confusion, anger and disbelief as the meaning of Methos' words sank in. He couldn't help remembering all the friends he had lost to the Game, a Game that he had just discovered had no real reason to be. An endless war he had been fighting for four hundred years, that had claimed the life of so many of his dearest friends... It was too much... to discover that it all started with an idle threat. He looked up at Methos, trying to figure out what went on behind the mask. After a couple of minutes he worked up the courage to ask the question that was consuming him, hoping against all hope to have misunderstood what Methos had said.

"Do you mean to tell me that you started the Game?"

"Not quite, Mac. I said the words, but it was Kronos who twisted them into his sole reason to live... you may say I have been severely misquoted, if it makes you feel any better." Methos answered, the familiar cynicism firmly in place once again.

"Misquoted? Is that all you have to say for yourself? The last five thousand years have been a damn immortal genocide because you were 'misquoted'!"

"I know that, but it wasn't in my power to stop it. Have you forgotten what happened to the other Methos when he tried to talk other immortals into abandoning the Game? Thanks but I think I'd like my head to remain where it is."

"O.K. maybe it would be difficult for the Game to end now, without a winner, but back then you could have done something about it!"

"A winner? Haven't you figured that one out already? There will never be a winner. Not as long as new immortals keep joining the Game, it will never end. It can't end, but it does serve to keep the immortal population under control."

"It's good to know you are so concerned with the demographics of the situation, but don't you think this is kind of rash."

"It's funny, sometimes a child can teach you so much."

"What on Earth are you talking about?"

"About the meaning of the Game, of course. Do you truly believe it is as futile as you now seem to think? Let me repeat the question I asked you a while ago, what would have happened with you had there been no Game to play? What would have happened with all of us then?"

"I don't know, I've never had that choice, you took it away from me."

"Maybe I did. And maybe there was a reason for that as well. You may wonder and dream of a perfect world. I remember."

"The Horsemen..." it was barely a whisper, but Methos nodded.

"Yes, that's exactly what you would get. You can't be human if you have no fear, and you can't fear if you cannot die. The Game directs immortal aggression towards other immortals and it prevents another aberration such as the Horsemen from becoming a real danger. Immortals fear each other too much to attempt such a thing."

"That's why we play? To protect mortals?"

"Yes, among other things. Do you remember Claudia Jardin? Do you remember why she refused to learn to fight?"

"She said she needed to fear death in order to play. It made no sense to me then."

"Oh, but it does make sense. She got it right, you can't live without survival instinct. To do so would be merely to survive. Your life has no meaning, it becomes a nightmare, or you become a monster. Besides the Game helps us keep each other in check. If you hadn't considered yourself to be endangered, would you have faced Kalas, or any of the others for that matter?"

"I don't know, I believe I would have."

"The eternal Boy Scout, aren't you? Count yourself as lucky for not being born when I was... believe me, you would have been more likely to join the Horsemen than to fight them, if fighting them had been possible, that is."

"But you said that the Horsemen weren't much worse than the world around them, then why do you fear them so much?"

"Because we weren't much worse back then, when we couldn't kill more than the ones we could kill with our own hands, but God knows what could happen now. Kronos came as close to showing me that as I ever want to be."

"But Kronos was a product of his time..."

"We are all a product of our own time, Mac, the only problem is that this is not our time."

"Somehow it will have to be."

THE END

* * *

**_Author's notes:_** Okay, a couple of things, first, this is a **_very_** old fic. I wrote this one back in 1998 and the reason why I decided to post it now is because it may make _A Watcher's Son_ easier to follow. Also, I know I'm messing a bit with the timeline by pushing the Horsemen back a couple of millennia, that is due to the fact that Methos stated that he'd been keeping a journal ever since writing was invented, seeing how I couldn't quite picture Death writing in his tent I figured this was the best way to reconcile both elements.

Alec


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